Wolves Of The North
by Sol Winterfang71
Summary: He was Ulfhednar. He was a hunter and warrior of unparalleled strength and unrivaled ferocity. Once entranced by a blood frenzy, his feral savagery was incomprehensible and his inhuman fury unfathomable. None will be left standing in his wake and all others still in his path were living on borrowed time. They better pray that the Gods show them mercy...because he won't... Rated M
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Forewarning and Clarification: This is the rewrite of Beasts of War, completely redone and retitled (Take Two!).

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Wolves Of The North

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Chapter One

There were reasons why his nearly-extinct clan was feared and revered, why their fuuinjutsu was said to be the most powerful in the land, why they lived such long lives. The Uzumaki were not...native. Before the 'birth' of Chakra, his people had lived far to the north on the other side of what later became known as Yuki no Kuni, the Land of Snow. Back in those days long-since lost, they'd been little more than...raiders. Not bandits or thieves or senseless murderers...but they were not innocent in those regards at the same time. No, they were raiders because they had no other choice. In a land where they could not grow crops easily or raise livestock and the like, they had to find other ways of supporting themselves...and fishing only got them so far during the 'off' seasons, when the ocean currents didn't carry as many fish to the arctic seas.

They were a...unique group of people, their beliefs and culture far different from the rest of the world. They were...an oddity, an enigma to many that knew of them, a mystery to all others, but they would all agree on one thing when it came to the Kita no Ookami, as they were once called by the rest of the world, _Norske_ among their own; they were dangerous and not to be trifled with...

It'd been almost two centuries before the birth of Chakra when the Kita no Ookami came to what later became known as the Elemental Countries. It hadn't been a migration of their people in its entirety, but a select number of them that had chosen to leave their homeland, _Nordrljos_, though the rest of the world would later refer to it as Orora no Kuni. Those 'few' _Norske_ traveled across the seas to the south for as long as their supplies would allow them before finally reaching the shores of what became known as Uzushio no Kuni and it was there that the Uzumaki clan was first founded. To them, though, they called themselves the _Aki_. For years, they lived on Uzushio without much conflict with the 'local' populations, who they called _Orlendr_, 'Outsider' or 'Stranger', but the _Aki_ still learned their culture and language as the years went by out of necessity.

It wasn't until centuries later, when Chakra became more wide-spread and started 'bleeding' into the _Aki_, who'd taken on the name Uzumaki from their _orlendr_ 'neighbors', that the Uzumaki clan's 'rise' truly began. By blending their own teachings and beliefs with those of the _orlendr_ 'shinobi', the Uzumaki clan's ninjutsu became far more powerful than most of their neighboring clans; especially their fuuinjutsu. Because they were relatively isolated from the rest of the world on the large island of Uzushio no Kuni, they were spared from the 'Clan Wars' that rampaged across the known world, but...that did not mean they didn't participate. Being master ship-makers and natural born warriors, they became infamous as raiders once more even though they did not 'raid' quite as frequently as their distant relatives.

Sadly, by then, the _Norske_ of _Nordrljos_ had fallen to the elements of their arctic homeland, never to be seen or heard from again...

As the years went by, though, the Uzumaki clan developed something the _orlendr_ called a 'bloodline', a genetic mutation that was empowered by their chakra. In fact, they'd developed a few, but only a select few mutations survived through the generations. Chief among them were four different abilities. Three of them were the Eye of Kagura, the Golden Chains of Sealing, and a 'nameless' passive self-healing ability, but to the Uzumaki, in their native language, they were called the Gaze of _Heimdall_, the Blessing of _Eir_, and the Chains of _Fenrir_.

The Gaze of _Heimdall_ granted the Uzumaki who'd awoken it the ability to see a person's 'chakra spirit' from normally impossible distances, some even spoken of being able to 'see' across entire countries; the legends were inconclusive and debated, but it most commonly awoke in Uzumaki women. The Chains of _Fenrir_, much like the Gaze of _Heimdall_, almost exclusively awoke in Uzumaki women, granting them the ability to form virtually unbreakable chains of 'golden light' out of their chakra that sprouted from their bodies; they were limited in number and length only by their chakra reserves, chakra control, and experience with the Chains of _Fenrir_. The Blessing of _Eir_, however, was possessed by almost all Uzumaki, regardless of gender, that granted them exceptionally long life-spans, allowed them to heal nearly three times quicker than most _Orlendr_, and made their chakra far more potent than that of their 'neighbors'.

However, their most powerful, but rarest 'kekkai genkai', as called by the _orlendr_ clans, was called _Ulfhednar_. In the Old Tongue of his ancestors, it meant 'Men in Wolf Skin', derived from the word _ulfr_, meaning Wolf, and _hed_, meaning Skin, which gaveway to _Ulfhednar_; Men in Wolf Skin. It was said that only a small handful of _Ulfhednar_ appeared in each generation, numbering no more than a dozen and no less than three. Unlike the Uzumaki clan's three other kekkai genkai, the _Ulfhednar_ bloodline was neither subtle nor 'invisible' to the unaided eye like the Gaze of _Heimdall_ or the Blessing of _Eir_. It was just as it sounded. An Uzumaki that had awoken the _Ulfhednar_ bloodline became, what was best described, as werewolves, allowing them the ability to change between man, wolf, and werewolf at will once they'd learned to control it.

At all times, it granted them incredible strength of body, the senses and instincts of a wolf, and a much stronger Blessing of _Eir_; where other Uzumaki would take a couple weeks to heal, an _Ulfhednar_ healed in a matter of days. However, it came at a cost. Not only were they both man and beast in body, but also of mind; it made them extremely tempermental and, typically, rather violent individuals when aggitated or provoked. Their instincts were as powerful as their bodies and their hearts 'sang' with bloodlust that was very difficult to quell once incensed. They were natural born hunters and warriors, even moreso than their kin, but they were also 'loners', oftentimes isolating themselves from others and avoiding 'civilization', choosing to live in the wild instead of around other people...

He was an _Ulfhednar_...

And one of the few remaining _Aki_ in the world...

"Settle down before you cause a scene, _sveinn_." The woman's gruff and thickly accented scolding tone made him grimace irritably, but he still reluctantly silenced his quiet growling. Sighing quietly, the woman continued talking in a consoling tone, her fierce amethyst eyes softening with apologetic understanding. "I gave my word to this village's _forn skati_ that I would bring you back once you completed your training in our people's ways. We are honor-bound, _nefi_. Once we give our word, we must follow through with our promise, no matter what. Trust me, _nefi_, if it'd been up to me, you would never have to leave Uzushio if you didn't want to."

With her blood red waist-length hair woven into dozens of slender braided dreadlocks and pulled back into a low-set pony-tail with a leather band to hold them in place, the _Aki_ woman stood just a couple inches shy of six feet with a lithe, though muscular build fit for a battle-hardened warrior without taking away from her womanly figure. She was in a pair of skillfully hand-crafted brown elk-skin pants that hugged the contours of her toned legs like a second skin, black knee-high animal-hide boots with light grey wolf fur lining the inside of them, a backless elk-skin halter top that left her well-defined abs in plain view, an elk-skin satchel pouch that was strapped to the side of her left thigh, and twin leather bands tightly wrapped around the middle of her biceps with the one on her left arm bearing the spiral-engraved plate of her Uzushiogakure hitai-ate on it.

"I know that, _tante_..." The sixteen year old grumbled quietly from his spot beside her as they walked down the broad street that led from Konoha's main gate and straight into the heart of the village, his startlingly bright crystaline blue eyes half-lidded with distrust and ire towards the people around them. "I just can't help it. _Afi_'s the only one in this damn village that ever cared about me. I don't even have any friends here..."

"You'll be fine, _minn litit drengr_." The woman retorted with a slightly mischievous grin as she reached over and playfully mussed up her nephew's hair a little bit, blatantly ignoring the pointed look and quiet wolf-like growl she was given in response as he smoothed back the stray hairs she'd brushed out of place. "Have a little patience. You'll make friends in no time, just like you did back in Uzu."

Having taken to his people's culture and teachings like a fish to water, he kept his sun-kissed blonde hair buzzed down along the sides and back of his head, the golden strands having been pulled back and twisted into a tightly woven braid that reached just past his shoulder blades. He was dressed in a pair of dark brown elk-skin three-quarter length pants not too dissimilar to his aunt's, a dark brown leather vest-like harness that crossed over his chest and the back of his shoulders in an X-like fashion with a couple small pouches attached to it in front of his right shoulder, elbow-length fingerless 'gauntlets' of toughened dark brown leather on his forearms with dark grey metal plates armoring them from his knuckles to his elbows, and similarly made greaves that covered his shins from his knees to the tops of his feet.

He had a deep red-orange sash wrapped around his waist with one end left hanging down just beyond his knees in the front while grey cloth were wrapped around his feet, ankles, and half-way up his forelegs in the place of shoes that left his toes and heels uncovered. Over the sash was a thick belt of dark brown leather that held his twin hatchets, which hung from metal ring-like hoops at his hips, and his twin hunting knives, which were mounted horizontally to it along his lower back in toughened elk-skin sheathes with the handles set behind his hips. An elk-skin satchel pouch was strapped to the side of his left thigh while a pair of kunai holsters were strapped to the side of his right thigh with a leather strap, a small bird skull no bigger than his thumb having been attached to the flap of his satchel pouch.

He also wore a dark grey metal mask shaped in the likeness of a snarling wolf's fang-filled muzzle that covered the lower half of his face up to the bridge of his nose with dark brown leather straps holding it in place, his whisker-marked cheeks kept hidden. His most precious possession, though, was a dark teal blue hexagonal crystal the same length and width as his pinky finger, which hung from his right ear lobe by a small and simple ring of golden metal.

What truly made him stand out, however, were the ancient _Norske_ runes he'd tattooed onto his body, the markings of midnight black ink constrasting heavily with his sun-bronzed skin and blonde hair. Runes of empowerment encircled his biceps and forearms under his gauntlets, runes of protection ran along his collarbone like a necklace and decorated his chest, and others covered his flanks, leaving his well-defined abs completely untouched.

On his back between his shoulder blades was a wolf-like yin-yang symbol formed by two wolf heads with the black wolf 'chasing' a black sun while the white wolf 'chased' a white moon; a blending of the teachings of yin-yang and his people's lore of the wolves _Skoll_ and _Hati_, who endlessly chase the Sun, _Sol_, and the Moon, _Mani_. It was further decorated with runes that circled around the design while two _Norske_-tribal ravens sat just below them with two black triangular marks flanking the ravens. Resting below them was a tree that ran half-way down his spine before giving way to its entangling roots that ended just above his tail bone; the ravens were _Huginn_ and _Muninn_, companions of the _Norske_ god, _Odin_, in his people's culture while the tree was that of _Yggdrasil_, the Tree of Life and another piece of his ancestors' culture and beliefs.

A slightly tense silence fell over the two _Aki_ as they kept walking, neither in a rush to reach the village's main administrative building near the base of the Hokage Monument. Ragnell threw a momentary glance towards the son of her deceased younger half-sister, Uzumaki Kushina. At the tender age of six, Naruto had awoken his 'lupine soul' during the Fox Festival, an annual celebration of the Kyuubi no Kitsune's defeat at the hands of the Yondaime Hokage, who'd given his life to take down the monstrous Bijuu...by sealing it away in the navel of a newborn infant; Naruto.

The '_forn skati_', the Sandaime Hokage, had foolishly announced it to the village as a whole not long after the catastrophic and sudden attack, the old _orlendr_ having wanted the villagers to see Naruto as a hero. He'd misjudged the depth and severity of everyone's pain, both physical and emotional, however, and the villagers came to loathe Naruto's very existence. A dozen attempts had been made on little Naruto's life within the first week, prompting the Sandaime to instate a law, potentially punishable by death, that forbid anyone that knew the truth from ever mentioning the Kyuubi or its sealed presence inside of Naruto; not amongst themselves, not to the younger generations, and especially not to Naruto.

It'd been during the sixth annual Fox Festival, which also happened to be Naruto's birthday, when a drunken villager had stumbled upon Naruto and decided to exact their 'revenge' against the Kyuubi that night. Dragging the boy into a dark alley where no one would be able to interrupt them, the villager began to ruthlessly beat him, fully intent on killing the poor child with his bare hands by night's end. During the beating, the pain and fear of dying had caused the 'wolf in his heart' to stir from its slumber, causing him to suddenly transform as he awoke his clan's _Ulfhednar_ bloodline. The villager, who'd been choking him at the time, had unintentionally lightened his grip as he watched the 'demon child' transform into a lycanthropic creature right before his eyes. In that moment of distraction, Naruto's newly-minted claws raked across the man's face with blind feral instinct, freeing him and allowing the _Aki_ child to escape, fleeing to the forests almost instantly...

Later that same night, the Sandaime had found him and revealed a great many things to him once he'd managed to calm the terrified and hurting beast-like child. One of the things he'd revealed to Naruto was his heritage as an Uzumaki, an _Aki_. The following day, he'd sent word to the surviving remnants of the _Aki_ in Uzushio, which had been ravaged by Kumo during the Third Great War, seeking an audience with the clan's leader. It'd been by sheer luck that it happened to be Uzumaki Ragnell, Kushina's older half-sister; their father had been unfaithful to their respective mothers, but it did little to separate the two half-sisters in their childhood before Kushina had been forced to move to Konoha. Even over such a great distance and after so many years without seeing each other, Ragnell had immediately journeyed to Konoha in response to the Sandaime's letter, having not been aware of her nephew's existence, let alone the plights that had befallen him in his then-short-lived life.

Almost instantly, she'd taken legal parental custody of Naruto, being his only living blood-relative and immediate family, but the elderly Hokage had made her swear that he was to be returned to Konoha the moment Naruto finished his training under Ragnell in the ways of the _Aki_. It hadn't been so that Naruto could learn how to fight or defend himself; it'd been to give Naruto time to 'heal' from the traumatic experience of nearly being beaten to death as well as to gain control over the nearly berserker-like kekkai genkai he'd awoken that dreadful night. Now, a little over ten years later, he was finally returning to Konoha, a fate he was begrudgingly forced into accepting.

"Naruto, before you go inside..." Ragnell suddenly spoke up as she gently grabbed Naruto by his shoulder, stopping him just a few meters away from the entrance to the Fire Tower. As her nephew looked up at her in mild confusion, the fourty-two year old _Aki_ matriarch withdrew two items from the pouch on her leg. One was an _Aki_ clan sealing scroll made from the tanned hide of an elk instead of a long sheet of parchment like those used by _orlendr_ shinobi, the rune for _Berkana_ burned into the leather to act as an indentifying marker. The other item was a smooth and polished dark grey river rock just a tad smaller than her palm that was covered in assorted runic markings on both sides. Using her free hand to grab Naruto's, Ragnell offered her precious nephew a small, joyless smile while placing the two gifts in the middle of his upturned palm. "I want you to have these. There's some specialized chakra control excercises to help you work on controlling your bloodline a little better and a couple decent techniques for you to learn and practice in your free time. As for the stone-"

"It's a _runstan_ charm; I know." Naruto quietly cut in, the scroll automatically getting stashed in the pouch on his leg while his bright cyan blue eyes were glued to the rune-marked stone still grasped in his other hand. A small, wry smile of his own tugged at a corner of his mouth as he gingerly brushed his thumb across its smooth surface before stashing it in an unusued pouch on his harness for safe keeping, finally looking back up at his aunt. "After spending the past ten years with you, _tante_, I think I know what a charm looks like by now, you superstitious old _seidkonor_."

"Che..._Veslingr_..." Ragnell half-heartedly growled out at her nephew for his taunting remark, both _Norske_ descendants sharing a small and cheeky smirk a moment later, though Naruto's remained hidden by his mask. Wrapping her arms around him before he could properly react, Ragnell hugged her nephew tight for a few long seconds before reluctantly pulling away from him. "I'm going to miss you, _nefi_. Take care of yourself, okay?"

"I'll be fine, _tante_. Don't worry so much." Naruto mumbled back quietly before his aunt started backing up, only to turn and leave without another word. Naruto grimaced slightly as he watched the red haired woman leave, waiting until he'd lost sight of her completely before finally turning back towards the main entrance of the Fire Tower and walking inside. Blatantly ignoring the looks he was getting from the people he passed along the way, he went straight for the Hokage's office, still vaguely remembering the way to his surrogate _Afi_'s office despite having not set foot in the village in a decade. After only a few minutes, the blue eyed bearer of the _Ulfhednar_ bloodline found himself standing before the door he'd been searching for, kind of wishing his aunt hadn't left so soon. Then again, she and _Afi_ didn't quite see eye-to-eye, having been at odds with one another, in a sense, ever since Ragnell had come to Konoha to get him ten years ago...

After taking a few moments to compose himself, he raised a gauntleted hand before lightly rapping his metal-capped knuckles against the wooden slab...

"Come in." Sarutobi Hiruzen called out after hearing someone knock at his door, casually gathering up some of the papers in front of him and setting them aside as his unexpected visitor opened the door and entered his office. Seeing only a blonde haired youth wearing what looked like hand-made clothing and gear that had been crafted from animal hides, Hiruzen found himself staring at them in confusion and curiousity...before his eyes slowly started to widen with recognition as the blonde teen leisurely reached up and pulled his metal face mask down. "Na...Naruto? Is it really you?"

"Hey, _Afi_...It's been a while." Naruto greeted quietly with a slight smile, sincerely happy to see the man he called 'grandfather' after so many years. The young _Aki_'s eyes suddenly went wide with surprise when the Sandaime moved faster than Naruto could properly track, moving around the desk and closing the distance between them in only a second or two before embracing him tightly. Neither said a word as Naruto gently hugged his _Afi_ back, his pale blue eyes closing serenely as they both savored the long awaited reunion...

xXx

Closing the door and locking the deadbolt, Naruto turned around and leaned back against the front door of his newly-gifted apartment, blankly staring at nothing in particular as he slowly took his mask off. He was by himself. For the first time in ten years, he was all alone again. It was...cold, emotionally. Pulling out the charm his aunt had given him, Naruto stared down at it absently while slowly rubbing his thumb back and forth across the _Vegvisir_ rune a couple times before turning it over in his hand and rubbing his thumb along the bind rune engraved into the river rock's polished surface.

_'It hasn't even been two hours and I already hate it here.'_ Sighing heavily as he closed his eyes, Naruto tucked the stone away into his pocket before sluggishly starting to tug at the straps securing his armor pieces and gear to his body, taking everything off as he moved to the side and sat down on the plain navy blue couch. Leaving his gear in a pile on the floor next to his cloth-wrapped feet, Naruto finally took an actual look around, but the place was sparsely furnished. There was the couch he was sitting on, which could seat up to three somewhat comfortably, a simple wooden coffee table in front of it that was almost as long as the couch was, a plain square wooden table over at the edge of the medium-sized kitchen across the way with only one chair, and a little end table back near the front door. Guessing there was a bed in the back room, Naruto grimaced slightly; he'd dealt with worse before...and less.

After unwrapping his feet and lower legs, he turned and lazily lounged across the couch with his hands on his stomach, blankly staring up at the ceiling as he mindlessly fiddled with the _runstan_ charm he'd been given. It was going to be a long time before he adapted to being alone again. At least things weren't like they'd been back when he was a little kid. He could defend himself properly now without losing control of his lupine soul. He also knew why he'd been so hated back then, having taken to wearing his wolf-like mask because of it. He'd always been so easily recognizable because of his whisker-like birthmarks, but so long as he kept them hidden from the general populace, the villagers shouldn't recognize him as the 'demon brat' for quite a while. Hopefully...

"Stop thinking about it, _fifl_..." Naruto quietly growled under his breath at himself as he closed his eyes and draped an arm over his eyes, his superstitious aunt's _runstan_ charm gently cradled in his upturned palm. Tomorrow, he was to start attending the Academy for the last week of classes before taking the Genin Graduation Exam at the end of it. Not the slightest bit worried about any of it at the moment, however, he forcefully cleared his mind and slowly let unconsciousness wash over him. He was tired...

xXx

The following morning, Naruto had always gotten up with the sunrise and ended up getting to the Academy extra early. Having arrived long before any of the other students and even some of the Academy's teaching staff, he picked out a seat in the very back near a window and quietly sat down. Slouched in the chair with his arms crossed under his tattooed chest, he simply stared out the window, not even really looking at anything specific as he waited for the day's class to eventually start. It wasn't too long, however, before some of his new 'classmates' started to steadily filter into the room, each of them chatting animatedly amongst each other.

"Tch...Must they all be so damn _loud_? Bunch of _daufi havadamikill born_..." The now-irritated _Aki_ grumbled under his breath while glowering at the others out of the corner of his eye for a moment before trying his best to tune them all out, staring out the window again. Unfortunately, what little bit of patience he still had was quickly being worn dangerously thin when a single loud-mouthed student finally noticed his presence and spoke up...

"Who the hell are you?!" Naruto closed his eyes with a quiet, aggitated growl that was drowned out by the noise generated by the others before slowly turning his head to look at the person who'd voiced the question; an Inuzuka in a black leather jacket with a waist-high white-furred canine companion. "Oi! I'm talking to you, dumbass! Who are you and what are you doing here?!"

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto, not 'dumbass', and I'm a late enrollee." The blonde answered coldly with narrowed icy crystaline blue eyes, his gaze matching the snarling visage of his mask. "Now..._hljod_, _ek skreyja bikkja_."

"Wha...?" Inuzuka Kiba responded dumbly with similar mutterings from some of the others in the room, not understanding the 'gibberish' the blonde stranger had just said. "Are you...retarded or something?"

"I said. Be. Silent. You incompetent. Bitch." Naruto snarled a little louder and more aggressively, speaking slower and more pointedly as he sat up in his chair, bracing his elbows on the desk in front of him as he leaned forward. "Did you get all of that this time or do I have to spell everything out for you, too?"

"You cocky sonuva-" Kiba's infuriated growl was cut short when someone else spoke up, someone that was also well known for having a loud mouth, except...they weren't as ignorant or obnoxiously arrogant as Kiba was. Something that had surprised a few of the _orlendr_ students that knew the girl all too well...

"You were just speaking fluent _Norske_ a moment ago, weren't you?" Haruno Sakura inquired quizzically from off to the side, distracting Naruto from his thoughts of putting the Inuzuka whelp in his place as he looked over at her. When he nodded a tad hesitantly, though distinctly in response, her bright emerald green eyes seemed to light up with excitement. "That's supposed to be a dead language. Only the Kita no Ookami knew it, but they were wiped out a long time ago during the Third Great War, right? How could you possibly know how to speak it so well?"

"...Kita no Ookami was just a 'nickname'. We call ourselves _Aki_, meaning Descendants in our native language, but to you _orlendr_, we're better known as the Uzumaki clan...and we weren't wiped out; not entirely, that is." Naruto answered quietly, his eyes locked with hers as he slowly lost his ire. "You're the first _orlendr_ I've met in a long time that knew damn near anything remotely noteworthy about my people without being associated with at least one of us...How?"

"W-Well...I spend a l-lot of time in the library...a-and _Norske_ is the only other language ever encountered and recorded in history..." Sakura answered meekly, a little unsettled by Naruto's intense and unwaivering stare, but not intimidated. It's not as if he were angry with her like he was with Kiba. "S-So, wait...You're actually a real Uzumaki? An _Aki_?"

"That's right..." Naruto answered bluntly, though a little standoffish and cautious of the pinkette's inquiry; he was sure her questions were harmless and meant solely to satisfy her own curiousity, but it was such odd timing. Hell, most of the other students had fallen silent, listening to their little conversation with rapt attention. Even Kiba, as ornery as he had been just moments ago, was actually listening to them; struggling to understand exactly what was going on, but he was still listening nonetheless. "Could we...possibly have this conversation another time, _maer_?"

"Oh! R-Right..." The pinkette agreed a little bashfully, smiling sheepishly at the blonde 'foreigner'. No sooner had they come to an agreement to postpone their little chat, a chuunin with a scar running across the bridge of his nose walked in the door; the class's sensei, Umino Iruka, if he remembered what _Afi_ had told him yesterday...

xXx

"So...This rune means 'good luck'?" Sakura asked curiously as she pointed to one of the two dozen different runes Naruto had written down on a piece of paper for her, the two having returned to their conversation from that morning during their lunch break. She was answered with a wordless nod from the blonde _Aki_ before she pointed to another one that had caught her eye. "What about this one? What's this rune?"

"Actually, it generally _also_ means 'good luck'. That's _Fylfot_." Naruto instructed, having already finished his lunch just minutes before Sakura had approached him. With nothing else to do for the remaining half-hour of their lunch break, he'd hesitantly agreed to giving the girl some rudimentary lessons in _Norske_ runology, teaching her a few things about his people's runes. Nothing serious or in-depth, but it was enough to both enlightment the aspiring kunoichi about _Aki_ culture _and_ get her to ease up with all of her questions; she was just so persistent and insatiably eager to learn as much as she could. "It might seem vaguely familiar to you, though. It was a very slow and gradual process that took centuries to take root, but the _fylfot_ rune is actually one of the very few _Norske_ runes that was somehow assimilated into your people's written language, albeit in very specific ways. The _fylfot_ rune is mostly used in certain mid- to high-tier _orlendr_ fuuinjutsu arrays, often acting as a 'focusing point' or 'center' for the seals without actually affecting the seal's primary function or purpose."

"Oh, wow...Really? That's amazing." Sakura murmured in a hushed tone as she stared down at the crudely compiled runic 'cheat sheet' Naruto had drawn up for her to study. "What about this one here? It's a lot more complex looking compared to the others..."

"That is actually _Vegvisir_; it's a runic compass, in a sense." The slightly cryptic response made her furrow her brow with mild confusion, trying to understand what he meant by that. "For us _Aki_, it is both a...superstition, if you will, and a key fuuinjutsu component in our runic seal-crafting. As a superstition, it helps in keeping you from getting lost, no matter where you are or where you go. In our fuuinjutsu, though, it creates a 'homing' or 'targeting' effect in certain kinds of seals. As an example, if you manage to tag an enemy with it, and seal-marked kunai you throw that are attuned to that specific rune will actually track the targeted enemy rather accurately, even if they try to run from them or dodge out of the way. However, they can't avoid obstacles caught in their trajectory."

"I didn't even know something like that was possible..." She remarked quietly, absolutely dumbfounded by not just the sample of the 'compass rune's' lore in _Aki_ culture he'd told her, but what the _vegvisir_ rune could do when incorporated into the _Aki_ people's fuuinjutsu formulas. That's when an idle thought drifted through her mind, momentarily distracting her from her original train of thought. "Hey, Naruto? That word you keep using...orlander? What does it mean?"

"_Orlendr_ and it means 'Outsider' or 'Stranger'. It's like your people's word, gaijin; a foreigner." Naruto corrected before explaining, causing the pinkette to gain a thoughtful look for a moment as she mentally filed away the new piece of information she'd just learned about the _Norske_ language. Randomly feeling a little awkward after a couple moments, however, Naruto fussed with his wolf-like mask for a moment to make sure it was still secured to his face properly, his light-colored cyan blue eyes wandering aimlessly as he avoided looking in Sakura's general direction. "Well, uh...I think that covers everything for now."

"Mnn...But there's still so much I want to learn about your people." Sakura whined softly with a slight pout, but she resigned herself to his decision nonetheless. "Could you...I mean, would it be okay if...you taught me more tomorrow? Please?"

"Haaah...I suppose I could teach you a little bit of _Norske_ or something tomorrow." Naruto sighed out tiredly as he hung his head slightly. _'She just won't give up, will she?'_

Sitting at another desk across the classroom, Uchiha Sasuke found himself staring at the new guy, both intrigued by the potential challenge he could prove to be in a fight and...honestly a little intimidated by him. Threatened, even. He couldn't tell what it was exactly, but the strange shirtless and somewhat wolf-masked blonde had some kind of _aura_ about him that seriously reminded Sasuke of an apex predator...and he was the prey. Just at first glance, Sasuke could tell that Naruto was already decently battle-hardened despite the fact he was no older than any of them were. He could see it in the blonde's eyes, his body language, and even his mannerisms; Naruto was fully prepared for a fight to break out at any moment.

Twin hatchets, twin knives, his armored bracers and greaves, the lack of a shirt allowing his entire torso and arms their full range of movement without anything to hinder or resist them. That wasn't even including the kunai pouches on his right leg or whatever the satchel on his left leg contained. If he was as skilled with throwing kunai and shuriken as he was with his other weapons and taijutsu, it didn't matter if it was an up-close-and-personal fight or a medium-range engagement because Naruto seemed like he was ready for anything to happen at any point in time. It was...unnerving. How could someone who hasn't even graduated from the Academy have the same ominous presence as a battle-hardened veteran shinobi? Something wasn't right about him...

_'Just how strong are you, Uzumaki Naruto?'_ Sasuke pondered with a slight narrowing of his eyes, his hands steepled in front of his face as he watched Naruto out of the corner of his eye. On a side note, however, he was a little grateful for the new guy keeping that pink haired annoyance of a fangirl distracted; one less thing pestering him every ten minutes. After staring at the blonde for no more than _maybe_ five consecutive seconds, Sasuke eyes widened a hair when Naruto 'randomly' turned his head to stare back at him, his slightly narrowed eyes a piercing electric blue. _'How did he...? There's just no way he could have possibly noticed me staring at him so quickly...So, how?'_

"Got something you want to say to me, _vamr_?" Naruto questioned coldly as he held Sasuke's stare, his lupine instincts having caught on to his 'watcher'. He was wondering why things seemed to get a little too quiet at that moment in time. Beside him, Sakura was actually silent instead of piping up in Sasuke's defense like she normally would have, not that Naruto knew of her usual antics. Not only that, but Sakura actually looked a little nervous, glancing between the two worriedly as the tension in the air between them thickened with an intangible malice and ill-tidings of violence. "Either speak your mind or quit staring at me. Or would you rather I come over there and violently introduce your face to your desk?"

"Hn." With a quiet grunt, Sasuke calmly averted his gaze elsewhere without making it seem as if he'd backed down from the thinly veiled challenge. Naruto simply snorted lightly while leaning back in his chair, his arms folded under his bare chest.

"Tch...Fucking _eldhusfifl_." Naruto scoffed irritably; he gets 'challenged' twice in the same hour by two wanna-be 'Alpha' types...and neither of them have the balls to follow through. Just once, he wanted someone to stand up to him and actually _try_ to put him 'in his place', so to speak. If his first day in the Academy was anything to go by, Naruto feared that he may never be challenged for dominance, a challenge that he truly craved with every fiber of his being...

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

**Japanese Translations**

Fuuinjutsu- Art of Sealing

Yuki no Kuni- Land Of Snow

Kita no Ookami- Wolves of the North

Orora no Kuni- Land of Northern Lights

Kekkai Genkai- Blood Inheritance Limit/Bloodline Limit

Gaijin- Foreigner

**Old Norse Translations** (Can't use the proper characters on WordPad)

_Norske_\- A member of the 'Kita no Ookami' (by technicality, actual translation is 'Norwegian' [altered for story])

_Nordrljos_\- Northern Lights

_Aki_\- Descendant(s)

_Heimdall_\- a Norse God, guardian of Asgard

_Fenrir_\- a monstrous wolf in Norse mythology (literal translation is 'Fen(Marsh)-Dweller')

_Eir_\- a Goddess/Valkyrie of healing

_Ulfhednar_\- Men In Wolf Skin

_Sveinn_\- Boy

_Forn_\- Old

_Skati_\- Leader

_Nefi_\- Nephew

_Tante_\- Aunt

_Afi_\- Grandfather

_Armr_\- Wretched

_Minn_\- My

_Litit_\- Little

_Drengr_\- a youth man in the sense of a warrior/one who is courageous or daring

_Skoll_\- One Who Mocks

_Hati_\- One Who Hates

_Sol_\- Sun

_Mani_\- Moon

_Huginn_\- Thought

_Muninn_\- Memory (or Mind)

_Runstan_\- Runestone

_Seidkonor_\- Sorceress (a female practitioner of _seidhr_\- a form of runic magic/sorcery)

_Veslingr_\- Puny Wretch

_Fifl_\- Idiot, Fool

_Daufi_\- Stupid (also- Deaf-Mute)

_Havadamikill_\- Noisy

_Born_\- Children

_Hljod_\- Be Silent

_Ek_\- You (also- I)

_Skreyja_\- Incompetent

_Bikkja_\- Bitch

_Maer_\- Girl, Maiden, Maid, Virgin

_Fylfot_\- Good Luck

_Vegvisir_\- That Which Shows The Way

_Vamr_\- Loathsome Person

_Eldhusfifl_\- 'Hearthfire Idiot' (an idiot who sits by the fire all day)

A/N: And thus concludes the first chapter of the Beasts of War rewrite! First, I know it's _completely_ different from what it originally was in BoW, but...I really like it. It feels more...natural, I suppose, and not so 'forced'-ish as some of BoW's concepts and plot points were. I plan on expanding on things more in terms of Uzumaki/Kita no Ookami/_Aki_/'_Norske_' lore/history as the story progresses, so don't worry too much about some of the new changes. As for why I chose Old Norse/Vikings to take the place of the Shishisensou/Kurotsuki...Well, I realized that I'd been kind of screwing myself over with how I was going about things in Beasts of War originally. So, I went back to the basics and started from square one; namely, the 'introduction' of werewolves into the 'Verse'. What better than to go back to their 'roots', so to speak? Well...kind of. If I'm remembering right, 'Werewolf' is primarily Germanic, but not necessarily Nordic/Viking, even though the Old Norse translation is 'Vargulfr'. Even still, blending the lore of Nordic Ulfhednar and Werewolves was just...absolutely magnificent in my mind and I have to admit, I am quite proud with how things turned out in this chapter.

(EDIT) A/N: As most of those who have read the previous version of the first chapter to WotN, it is vastly different from the original. That's because I'd actually paid attention to some y'alls reviews about how unfairly OP Naruto had been while using his lycanthropic bloodline. After going over it again and again, I eventually realized that a lot of you had been right about it, so I started reshaping the first chapter and eventually settled on this one. As a forewarning, though, I _might_ switch up the pairing from Naru/Hana to something else; haven't decided if I will or what the alternative will be. For now, it'll stay Naru/Hana until I make up my mind on the matter. Regardless, I hope this variation is more to everyone's liking and I look forward to hearing everyone's opinion on both the chapter's new rewrite and on the possible change in pairing; so long as it is at least constructive in some way, shape, or form...

P.S: I finally have access to a computer again and will be continuing to work on WotN alongside my other stories. Hopefully, I can get back on track to updating/rewriting them all soon...and if anyone actually knowledgable in Old Norse (even if it's only in a handful of words/runes and their translations/meanings) happens to notice mistakes in my translations, please let me know so that I can fix them to the best of my ability. It'd be greatly appreciated...because I may have included a 'few' too many Old Norse words...


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Wolves Of The North

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Chapter Two

Before he realized it, a week and a half had passed. The first week wasn't _too_ bad, but the Graduation Exam ranking system left him at the bottom of the roster with the lowest total score due to him having not actually attended the Academy like everyone else. Thus, he'd been caught flat-footed by one of Konoha's age-old 'traditions' of teaming up the top male and female graduates with the lowest ranking graduate; more specifically, he'd been saddled up with Sakura and Sasuke, the three of them forming Team Seven under the tutelage and command of Jounin-sensei Hatake Kakashi. The next day, they'd damn near failed the _real_ genin graduation test that Kakashi had given them because of the Uchiha's stubborn arrogance and blatant refusal to work together with him and Sakura, simply claiming that they would only hold him back; the moron had his head so far up his own ass that Naruto couldn't tell where the punk-ass _fifl_ started or where he ended...

Being entirely honest with himself, though, Sakura wasn't _that_ bad to be around. Aside from her constantly trying to learn more and more about the _Aki_, their culture, the _Norske_ language, and their runes, Sakura was at least competent and knew how to work well with others. Unlike a certain _oflati_ on their team. Hell, even that infuriating _slapr_ they called 'Sensei' was more of a team player than Sasuke was...and Kakashi barely did anything helpful to begin with! Even as an unwilling participant in the whole thing, Naruto had actually _tried_ being nicer to the prick on multiple occassions, freely gave the angtsy little shit full 'control' over the team, and _still_, that arrogantly self-entitled _bikkja_ just won't cooperate with _anyone_! Not even for five fucking seconds!

"Na...Naruto?" Sakura nervously spoke up, her voice quiet and trembling ever so faintly; out of nowhere, he'd just started growling almost exactly like a wolf with such a terrifying look in his eyes. Snapped out of his infuriated mental ranting and raving, Naruto blinked a couple times before looking over at the pinkette, only to notice how she was eyeing him the same way a terrified rabbit would gaze upon a half-starved wolf that had just cornered it; fearfully. Closing his eyes and taking a couple slow, deep breaths to calm himself back down, Naruto gave Sakura an apologetic look before wordlessly turning around and walking deeper into the heavily wooded practice field, Training Ground Seventeen being one of Konoha's larger practice fields; excluding Fourty-Four, of course. Thankfully, Sakura didn't pursue him or even say anything; she must have still been in shock a little bit from the sudden scare she'd gotten...

He'll apologize to her properly later or something, but first, he needed to get away from the others before something...damaging could happen. The last thing he needed was to lose control of his lupine soul and turn full-lycan in front of his teammates and sensei, let alone what he might do to them in such a berserk state. At least the further he got from the others, the easier it was to keep his bloodline contained. Absent mindedly wandering deeper and deeper into the forest, Naruto kept fiddling with the _runstan_ in his pocket, his eyes glaring down at the ground about ten feet in front of him as he did his best to clear his mind of all conscious thought, but it was proving harder than usual as his more whispy ambient thoughts kept circling like vultures around how much Sasuke kept pissing him off more and more at every turn.

After wandering aimlessly through the trees for a good fifteen minutes or so, Naruto came across a peaceful little clearing with a nice little stream cutting through it. It didn't take long for his simmering anger to fizzle out in the clearing's peaceful atmosphere, the masked blonde taking a seat on the ground next to the gently flowing stream. A small, thoughtful grimace marred his face under his mask as he stared at the crystal clear water for a few long moments before turning his attention to his left bicep, having attached the leaf-engraved plate of his hitai-ate to his left arm band. He'd been a shinobi of Konoha, a genin, for all of four days so far and he was really starting to hate his team. Well...not the team, exactly. More like his team's dysfunctionality and totally fucked dynamics.

_'Who the fuck am I kidding? We're no team.'_ Naruto thought a little sourly as he lazily traced the stylized leaf on his hitai-ate with a finger before sighing heavily. _'If anything, we're just a couple totally incompatible misfits that got thrown together at random. We can't even agree on something together, no matter what it may be. Nine times out of ten, we can't even hold a civil conversation for a measly thirty seconds. Well, me and Sakura can, but not fuck-face...'_

Hearing something quiet just behind his right side, Naruto almost lazily glanced behind him over his shoulder to find a rather large wolf-husky staring at him that easily stood tall enough for its shoulders to be level with his floating ribs if he were standing, its head ducked down as it tentatively sniffed at his shoulder. Seeing as it wasn't showing any signs of potential hostility, Naruto smiled slightly while slowly reaching into the pouch on his left thigh, careful not to startle or spook the giant hound. Hearing the subtle sounds of his movements, the wolf-husky's ears perked up slightly as it watched him intently without moving an inch, only to start sniffing the air again as it caught wind of a new smell. A moment later, it was presented a piece of smoked venison jerky roughly half the size of Naruto's thumb. It looked a little hesitant for a moment as it glanced from the jerky to Naruto, back to the piece of dried venison, and then right back up to Naruto's eyes as it licked its lips slightly.

"It's okay, _ulfr_. It's not poisoned or anything." Naruto mumbled encouragingly with a slight joking undertone as he held the jerky in the palm of his outstretched hand, smiling a little more kindly under his mask when the wolf-husky licked their lips again, their drooping tail starting to slowly wag back and forth a little bit. "Go on, _vinar_. If you don't eat it, I will. It's my last piece..."

Glancing up from the piece of jerky to look at him again for a moment, the wolf-husky seemed to understand him quite easily. Even still, the canine wasn't going to let the opportunity slip away and leaned in to gently take the 'treat' from the strange-smelling human. Tail wagging a little more cheerfully, the wolf-dog happily chewed on the piece of dried out meat, actually leaning into his hand slightly when Naruto started to slowly and gently pet the side of its neck. Finishing off the snack, the grey and white furred wolf-dog moved closer to him, licking the 'cheek' of Naruto's metal muzzle-like mask as if to thank him for the piece of dried deer meat he'd given them while thoroughly enjoying the attention they were getting from the blonde's left hand at the same time.

"There you are, Kaijin! I was wondering where you'd run off to, boy." A woman called out from the brush as they approached, the wolf-husky's head instantly perking up and turning in the woman's direction. Giving a single bark in response, the newly identified Kaijin trotted off to regroup with the new arrival just as she came into view. "Huh...Well, that's a little strange. Kaijin normally won't let anyone outside my family pet him..."

She couldn't have been any taller than himself, maybe five and a half feet, with a rather attractive, athletically toned and well-endowed hourglass figure. Her chestnut brown hair was pulled back into a low-set pony-tail that reached a little past her shoulder blades while her feral-like eyes were a hazel-ish golden-brown, her skin lightly tanned by the sun. Decorating her cheeks were the tell-tale red fang-like markings that denoted her as a member of the Inuzuka clan, two other massive white and grey furred wolf-huskies stepping up from behind her to stand at her flanks while Kaijin jogged over to the Inuzuka woman.

She was dressed in a midnight blue skin-tight turtleneck bodysuit with mesh short-sleeves while the 'leggings' stopped an inch or two below her hips in the likeness of boyshorts, a snug-fitting dull green chuunin flak vest worn over it, black thigh-high closed-toe kunoichi boots that stopped just shy of mid-thigh on her, black skin-tight arm warmers on her forearms that went from her wrists to just above her elbows, and a biege-tan colored sash wrapped around her waist with one end left free to hang down to her knees in the front. A kunai holster was strapped to the side of her right thigh while a thick brown leather belt of sorts was situated around her waist and hips just under her sash, a pair of larger-than-average light grey equipment pouches attached to it behind her hips, and twin tanto-style trench knives holstered in brown leather sheathes on the sides of her hips. Her hitai-ate was loosely tied around her neck on a band of navy blue cloth while her flak vest was zipped up to just below her bountiful chest, which would have normally exposed a rather hefty amount of her cleavage if it weren't for her bodysuit.

Happily panting and wagging his tail a little bit, Kaijin greeted his human partner with another singular bark as he stood in front of her, only to excitedly bark a few more times, something that caused the woman to gain a subtle look of surprise on her fang-marked face...

"Eh...Mixed breed or not, me and wolves have always understood each other pretty well." Naruto spoke up after a moment, recomposing himself as he stood up from his spot on the ground and dusted himself off a little bit. "I'm Naruto...and you are?"

"Hana. Inuzuka Hana..." The woman responded in exchange as the..._uniquely_ dressed and strangely tattooed blonde walked closer to her and the Haimaru Triplets, her mind still trying to comprehend what Kaijin had said just a short couple seconds ago. Kaijin, the only one out of the triplets that didn't really like other people very much, had just told her that he really liked the guy. Well, not really, but he'd still called the blonde his friend. The most anti-social one of the Haimaru Brothers had just made his _first friend_ outside of the family. Just what was so special about this Naruto guy that made Kaijin trust the stranger so easily after only a couple minutes? "Kaijin wasn't bothering you, was he?"

"Not at all. I wasn't really doing anything anyways." Naruto answered politely with a momentary eye smile aimed at Hana before kneeling down as Kaijin walked up to him, the wolf-husky panting lightly with excitement and his tail still happily wagging back and forth. Eye smiling more cheerfully, Naruto didn't hesitate to start petting the ninken again. "If anything, he helped me get my mind off everything that's been bothering me recently, even if only for a moment..."

"Oh...?" Hana quietly intoned out of curiousity, watching as Kaijin reveled in the attention that Naruto was spoiling him with. She couldn't see his face because of his odd mask, but she didn't really need to when she saw how he stopped eye smiling with an odd look in his light blue eyes, clearly still troubled by whatever it was that had been on his mind earlier.

"It's nothing, really. Just...some communication issues between me and my teammates. That's all." Naruto responded softly, though almost monotonously. She could tell that it was more than that, but she didn't want to pry into it, either. They'd only just met, after all, and being so nosey about a stranger's personal business and life was quite rude. As if sensing his well-hidden distress, Kaijin whined softly before suddenly licking Naruto's muzzle-like mask a few times, acting almost like he was trying to cheer Naruto back up. Smiling wryly under his mask, Naruto fondly scratched the large wolf-dog under his chin, making Kaijin relax again. "Such a good boy..."

"Y-Yeah...He is, isn't he?" Hana murmured quietly, still kind of dumbfounded by Kaijin's uncharacteristic behavior in regards to Naruto. When her stomach growled quietly, though, Hana couldn't resist blushing faintly with embarrassment as she put a hand on it, the blonde shinobi oblivious to it as he kept petting Kaijin. Reminded of what she'd been doing when Kaijin had suddenly wandered off earlier, Hana couldn't help feeling a bit shy; Kaijin wasn't the only one that struggled with others. As kind and friendly as she was, Hana didn't have very many friends and didn't really go out all that much beyond doing missions or working at her family's veterinarian clinic and animal shelter when she wasn't doing missions or training. "H-Hey, Naruto...I was just on my way to get something to eat. Do you...wanna tag along? Kaijin seems to be pretty attached to you all of a sudden..."

"Hmm...It _would_ save me the effort of trying to hunt something down in the forest, wouldn't it?" Naruto mumbled quietly under his breath as he kept petting Kaijin, the normally 'skittish with strangers' canine having the time of his life as he rolled over onto his back so that Naruto could scratch his belly. A little jealous of their brother and kind of hesitantly curious about the blonde human, Haijin and Kaido stood just off to the _Ulfhednar_'s left, watching him and Kaijin with tilted heads and perked up ears as their tails started to twitch back and forth a little bit. Closing his eyes and smiling slightly under his mask as he thought it over, Naruto finally pat Kaijin's belly a couple times before standing back up. "So, what exactly did you have in mind?"

"U-Um...I hadn't exactly thought that part through yet." Hana answered a little sheepishly, blushing again as she looked off to the side embarrassedly. Naruto only smiled a little bit again, only with sincere contentment. _Tante_ Ragnell had been right after all; so long as he stayed patient, he'd eventually start making new friends all over again. "Any suggestions?"

"I'm probably the last person you would want to ask for suggestions on where to go for lunch...or just about anything, really." Naruto answered a tad sheepishly in return as he awkwardly laughed a little bit, eye smiling slightly at the chuunin woman. "I've been out of the village for the past ten years and just got back about a week and a half ago. I don't really know where anything is these days..."

"Really now...?" Hana muttered curiously as she tilted her head slightly, her two-tone honey gold eyes locked on the admittedly attractive looking shirtless blonde. It was actually proving more difficult than she'd anticipated to keep her attention focused on his masked face and not his bare, chiseled chest and abs...or his unusual tattoos. In the back of her mind, Hana was an anxious and flustered wreck, having never had an issue like that before and it wasn't like she hadn't seen a guy shirtless before. Even if he did look like he kept his body in peak physical fitness at all times. So, what the hell changed with her? Why did she feel so...strangely _intimidated_ and, dare she say, _excited_ just from standing near him as she kept sneaking split-second glances at the body of a young man she'd literally _just_ met less than five minutes ago?

"Mn...C'mon. I'll tell you about it while we walk...and try to figure out what we want to eat for lunch." Naruto spoke up after a moment of semi-awkward silence, gesturing off to the side with one hand as he eye smiled at her again. Normally, he wouldn't have accepted Hana's offer to join her for lunch, but there was something about her that...seemed to calm the normally savage wolven spirit inside of him. Whatever it was, Naruto decided to think about it another time, not really having anything to go on apart from a faint gut feeling. At least he wasn't on the verge of randomly flying into a potentially berserk rage any more...

xXx

"Wait, that irritating _veslinger_ back in the Academy was your little brother?" Naruto questioned a little incredulously before looking over at Hana with an odd look in his eyes that made the young woman shift a little awkwardly. "I don't believe you...There's no way that flea-bitten mutt is related to you."

Blinking a little owlishly, Hana couldn't stop herself from busting out with laughter almost immediately while Naruto just stared at her a little flatly, confused as to what was so funny to her. After a short visit to a nearby street-side barbeque stand, they'd gone back to Training Ground Seventeen, returning to the same little clearing they'd met in not that long beforehand. Before either of them had realized it, almost half of the afternoon had passed them by as they swapped stories and got to know each other better.

"Hahaha! F-Flea-bitten mutt! Oh, Mom's gonna love that one!" Hana crowed amidst her laughter as she finally started calming back down, wiping away the lone mirthful tear that had formed in the corner of her eye. "Ehehe...Kiba's always been the 'scruffy' one in the family, even by Inuzuka standards, but he's still my little brother."

"'Scruffy' isn't exactly the word I'd use to describe him..." The blonde haired _Aki_ mumbled quietly as he used one hand to hold his mask in place while using the other to brandish his last remaining skewer of dango. Finishing off the last dumpling, he gently tightened the straps to his mask, careful not to reveal his whisker-marks. Having subtly watched him out of the corner of her eye the whole time, Hana frowned slightly with curiousity and confusion, wondering why he seemed so dead-set on keeping his face hidden.

"Hey, Naruto? If you don't mind me asking...what's up with you and that mask?" The Inuzuka chuunin inquired curiously, though she noticed how her new friend tensed up for a split second. "I mean...even while we were eating earlier, you looked like you kept going out of your way to keep your face hidden..."

"I..." Naruto trailed off just as soon as he'd started talking, a quiet and short-lived whine escaping Kaijin as the wolf-dog looked up at him, having been lying down between the two while Haijin and Kaido were lying on the other side of Hana. Absently resting his left hand on the large canine's head and neck, Naruto stared down at the ground in front of him in thought. Almost a minute of silence passed and Hana started thinking she'd touched upon a sore spot for the slightly younger teen, only to watch as Naruto suddenly reached up and loosened the straps to his wolf-like face mask. Hesitating for only a moment, he slowly took it off completely, exposing his whisker-marked cheeks around another person ever since he'd returned to Konoha a week and a half ago.

"I see. You're scared of people recognizing you...aren't you?" Hana asked softly, having recognized his birthmarks almost instantly. She remembered seeing him all over the village years ago and it was hard to forget such a loud and rambunctious little runt like him back then; especially so when just about every civilian adult held such an intense hatred and contempt for him in their eyes and treated him as if he were lower than dirt, as if it was taboo to look at him any other way. Tensing up a little bit again, Naruto didn't dare look away from the small stone he'd spotted in the grass; he didn't want to see the disdain in the eyes of his first 'real friend' since returning to Konoha. He actually jumped slightly when he felt Hana's hand gently touch his shoulder, something that actually made Hana jump a little in response from how unexpected his reaction was. It only made her frown more. Putting her hand back on his shoulder, Hana gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. "...I didn't mean to upset you, Naruto. I was just curious."

"Wait, you-" Naruto cut himself off as he looked up at her in shock, seeing only warmth and tenderness in the Inuzuka woman's eyes. "You...don't hate me?"

"Hate you? Why would I hate you, Naruto?" Hana quietly gasped out in honest shock, looking the slightest bit offended that he'd assume something like that. Watching as he silently put his mask back on and went back to staring at the ground in front of him, Hana slowly and...almost _reluctantly_ retracted her hand from his shoulder, suddenly having mixed feelings about the unusual rune-tattooed blonde she'd befriended. Some of the more subtle things in his behavior and body language reminded her a little too much of an abused dog; it wasn't right to see someone like that. They sat in silence for a minute or so before Hana finally spoke up again. "You're a good guy, Naruto...I'd actually really like it if we could be friends."

"Mn..." Naruto quietly grunted in response, gently petting the side of Kaijin's neck as the wolf-husky whined softly again, resting his head in the blonde's lap. Looking down at Kaijin, he couldn't help grimacing slightly under his mask. It felt like he was six years old again, surrounded by people he didn't know and in a land he was unfamiliar with. He wished Ragnell was around; she'd be able to help him make heads or tails of everything...

"Hey...If you ever need someone to talk to, don't be afraid to come to me...okay?" Hana offered with a small, solemn smile as she reached back over to rub the back of his shoulder comfortingly. Seeing him visibly relax that time instead of jumping as if he were expecting to be hit, she smiled a little more warmly. Little by little, she'll do what she could to heal his 'wounds' to the best of her abilities, regardless of what had caused them...

xXx

As the afternoon gave way to the evening, Hana finally bid him farewell for the day before leaving with her three canine companions in tow. Crouched atop a boulder jutting out of the ground at the edge of the large clearing he and his 'teammates' had been using earlier in the day, Naruto continued to blankly stare off into the distance, his elbows braced against his knees. Kaijin hadn't exactly been pleased with having to go, something that had once again confused Hana about the ninken's behavior.

_'What the hell came over me earlier?'_ Naruto pondered with a slight grimace made visible only by the faint furrowing of his brow, the fingers of his right hand slowly and absently rolling his runestone charm between them. Why'd he take his mask off like that? Why didn't he just say something instead? Why...did he feel so comfortable around her? It was all so strange to him, the foreign thoughts and feelings swirling around inside him. Still staring off into the distance, Naruto slowly closed his hand around the rune-marked stone, gripping it firmly as his slight grimace shifted from turmoil to understanding and realization. _'I guess I know how Kaijin must have been feeling about having to go home earlier. It _was_ rather nice having her around...'_

"Next time, wait until I dismiss you guys before running off like that." Kakashi suddenly commented, cutting through Naruto's thoughts and making the blonde's eyes narrow slightly with mild annoyance. Slowly looking over to his right, the young _Aki_ settled his gaze on the slouching one-eyed jounin. "I don't know how they do things back where you used to live, but we do things a certain way around here. As your jounin sensei, I expect you to listen better next time."

"Hmph..." Naruto could only snort with irritation towards the man for the remark as he faced forward again. "I'll listen to your orders because of your rank, but not as my teacher. That would imply that you're actually teaching me something..."

"...Mouthy, aren't you?" Kakashi mumbled quietly with a narrowed eye, unamused by the weird teen's subtle insult. Not in the mood to argue at the moment, Kakashi scoffed quietly before turning and walking away, Icha Icha in hand. Scowling a little more beneath his mask, Naruto glared into the forest on the other side of the clearing. He was quickly tiring of his so-called 'team'...

xXx

"What's with that look on your face, dear?" Inuzuka Tsume inquired curiously as she glanced over at her daughter, who seemed to be sulking almost as she sat at the bar counter dividing the kitchen from the dining room, slouched forward with her arms crossed under her chin. "Your brother didn't do something stupid again, did he?"

"No, Mom, Kiba didn't hide a dead squirrel in my room again..." Hana sighed out a little dejectedly as she looked to the side, spacing out a little as she stared out the nearby window. She couldn't stop thinking about how...skittish Naruto had been earlier. She'd barely even touched his shoulder when he'd jumped like that, startling her in response to her accidentally startling him. "I'm just...thinking about something..."

"Are you sure it's a some_thing_ and not a some_one_?" The Inuzuka matriarch questioned as she glanced over at Hana again, only to notice how Hana seemed all the more depressed without saying a word, silently confirming Tsume's suspicioun. Switching the stove to a lower setting to let the stew she was cooking simmer for a little bit, Tsume turned back towards her daughter before 'mimicking' her, her arms crossed her under head as she looked at her daughter with the same solemn look on her face, only it was a tad mocking due to not being sincere. "What is it, baby? Did another girl snag the guy you liked before you could-"

"Mom. Stop." Hana abruptly cut in with an exasperated sigh as she sat up and looked out the window a little more fully, not really in the mood to deal with her mother's 'childish' antics at the moment. "Seriously, just...not right now."

"Oh..." Was all Tsume could mutter, stunned by just how seriously her daughter's gloominess; she would usually at least get a poorly hidden snicker or something out of Hana whenever she 'mocked' her. "Hana...? What's going on with you, musume? Did something happen?"

"I...met someone earlier today. A boy a couple years younger than me..." Hana quietly admitted before leaning back in her chair with a quiet, tired sigh while lazily folding her arms over her stomach. "He...Mom, I think he used to be abused or something and...I don't know what I can do to help him..."

"Ooh...I see." Tsume murmured 'knowingly' even though she'd only been told a fraction of the whole story so far. Her daughter had always been a kind-hearted girl, always trying to help others; she didn't like seeing anyone or anything suffering or hurting or ill, which had blossomed into the young woman's 'side-career' as a veterinarian. However, despite her desire to help others, Hana had always struggled when it came to actually reaching out and trying to make friends. Nineteen years old and she had _maybe_ one or two friends that could be more accurately described as acquaintances with how often Hana actually socializes with them or anyone else outside of their clan, really. Even amongst their relatives, Hana usually just stuck to the kennels or the clinic, tending to all of the dogs and the other animals they sheltered instead of actually spending time around other humans for any meaningful length of time. "Well...maybe I could help. What's his name?"

"Mom, I...It's not that simple. He-" Hana stumbled over her words a little as everything started feeling a little overwhelming, emotionally, for a minute before calming back down and taking a couple deep breaths. "Mom, I promised not to tell anyone who he really is, okay? You have to understand, if I break his trust in me _now_-"

"Hana, Hana, Hana! Settle down, baby girl. It's okay, I understand." Tsume reassured softly, holding her hands up a little bit and placatingly urging her daughter to relax a little more before settling into a chair across from Hana, her cheek propped on a fist as she sighed audibly. "Haaah...So, how long do I have before you come home with him, begging me to let you keep him?"

"_Mom_...Be serious, for just five minutes. Please." Hana half-groaned and half-sighed as she slumped forward again, her elbows braced on the counter and her face buried in her hands. Thinking about earlier that afternoon, Hana couldn't help recalling the way Kaijin interacted with Naruto and how quickly the two of them had bonded; it still left her a bit stumped, having been blindsided entirely with how fast Kaijin had befriended a complete stranger. That's when she thought about a couple things, such as the first thing Naruto had said to her in the beginning, the subtle and 'not so subtle' clues she could recall such as his strange tattoos and the handful of words he'd used that she'd never heard of before, and a few other things. "Hey, Mom...Do you...knowing anything about the _Aki_?"

"...Actually, I _do_. Why do you ask, Hana?" Tsume asked after a momentary pause, feigning 'ignorance' rather convincingly as she and Hana kept talking. The moment her daughter had said that she couldn't say who he was, Tsume instantly got a gut feeling that it was Naruto, the Sandaime having informed her and a select few others about Naruto's return to the village. Truthfully, she wasn't all that surprised to learn that Naruto still showed clear and distinct symptoms of being abused in the past; the poor boy was nearly killed when he was just a little kid. On the night of his sixth birthday, on top of it all! Tsume could only hope that Hana really did manage to help Naruto recover from his past traumas a little more...

He'd always been such a good kid in her eyes back then, regardless of him being the Kyuubi's living prison cell. A storage scroll was not the kunai sealed inside of it...

xXx

Blocking Sasuke's high kick with his left forearm, Naruto simultaneously used his right hand to redirect Sakura's attempted punch that had been aimed at his jaw. Kakashi had thought it would be an 'ideal punishment' to have him fight both of his teammates at the same time, but the jounin had underestimated him and overestimated the actual combat effectiveness of the two. The Uchiha was skilled, but hot-headed and arrogant while Sakura's strength was her intelligence, not her fighting skills. Not only that, but Sasuke wasn't very co-operative and refused to actually work with the pinkette; had they worked as a team, they just might have been problematic for him.

As Sakura stumbled forward with wide eyes after being forced into over-extending on top of missing her attack, Naruto didn't hesitate to snap kick the inside of Sasuke's left knee before he could get his footing, buckling the Uchiha's left leg in an instant. Before he could even fall halfway to the ground, Naruto hopped up slightly while twisting his body, kicking up into Sasuke's unprotected left flank with enough force to send the Uchiha back up until he was chest-height with Naruto, the dark haired genin's body slightly contorted from the kick and roughly parallel with the ground. Stomping his right foot back down and towards the airborne Uchiha, Naruto threw all of his weight into an open-handed palm thrust to Sasuke's solar plexis, sending him rocketing back almost a dozen meters before colliding back-first with the first tree that got in his way.

Sakura could only stare at him with wide eyes, frozen with shock after watching Naruto utterly demolish Sasuke in taijutsu in the time it took her racing heart to beat a handful of times, the tattooed _Aki_'s body having blurred from the speeds he'd been moving at. Before she could even blink, Naruto had whipped around to concentrate on her. In the time it took her to flinch ever so slightly with a touch of fear, Sakura felt his right elbow connect with the center of her chest while his hand roughly grasped the back of her neck, his left hand catching her right forearm in a vice grip at the same time. A couple frantic and adrenaline-boosted heartbeats later, she felt Naruto's right leg hook around her own before forcefully sweeping her legs out from under her in an instant while using his grip on the back of her neck to send her crashing into the ground with a cry of pain.

"Is that all you got? And you have the balls to call yourselves ninja?" Naruto snarled lowly as he glared at his downed teammates. Sakura was already curled up in the fetal position and clutching her right arm near her elbow, pained whimpers and stifled cries escaping her. He'd actually gone a little easy on her, having grown reluctantly fond of the pinkette's eagerness to learn and insatiable curiousity; even still, she most likely had a minor fracture in her arm from hitting the ground so hard. Sasuke, on the other hand...Naruto couldn't stop the slightly sadistic fanged smirk from forming under his mask as he watched Sasuke, doubled over on all fours in front of the tree he'd hit and painfully dry heaving amongst choking gasps in a desperate attempt to refill his agonizingly emptied lungs, his heavily bruised back and two cracked ribs making everything worse on him. That's when his eyes went to the silver haired jounin, who was staring at them all with a lone wide eye, shell shocked by Naruto raw brutallity and fierce strength as well as the injured states of his two other students. "And you, Hatake. Let your fucking dislike of me dictate your teaching methods like this again and I-"

"You'll _what_, Uzumaki?!" Kakashi suddenly snapped back as he was kicked out of his stupor by Naruto's snarling tirade, cutting him short while narrowing his eye on the blonde genin. "You better watch what you say, _genin_. Threatening a superior can be deemed as treason against the village, a crime punishable by death..."

"Che...You pull this kind of shit again and it won't be me you'll be answering to, Hatake." Naruto growled at the jounin, tightly clenching his fists to hide the way his nails were starting to grow a little longer and pointed, hardening and slowly turning black as his claws started to form, his fang-like canines blatantly bared at the one-eyed man from beneath his muzzle-like face mask. Even in his suddenly furious state of mind, he was still very much aware of the fact that he needed to get away from them as fast as possible; his bloodline was on the verge of breaking free of his control.

Even as he held Kakashi's harsh narrow-eyed stare with his own furious glare, Naruto was already starting to walk backwards, his icy blue eyes slowly turning into baleful and soul-piercing golden-amber discs. Seeing the distinct change in the _Aki_'s eyes, Kakashi actually hesitated before he could try ordering Naruto to stay where he was, the blonde swiftly vanishing into the forest the moment he reached the edge of the clearing. Inhaling sharply out of nowhere once Naruto was gone, Kakashi could only stare at the spot where he'd last seen the 'foreign' genin, having not realized that he'd been holding his breath, the density and concentration of the Uzumaki's suffocating killing intent having vanished with him.

_'What...What _is_ he?'_ Kakashi thought with a startled lookin his lone eye, his right hand actually starting to shake ever so faintly while his fingers twitched slightly. He hadn't felt killing intent anywhere close to what Naruto was capable of giving off since the night the Kyuubi no Kitsune attacked the village...but his eyes had turned _gold_, not _red_ and he hadn't felt even the tiniest speck of the Kyuubi's chakra from him the whole time. Oh, he knew Naruto's true identity; he'd known since the beginning...but it didn't change his dislike for the blonde. He was too much of a loose cannon...and a deceptively powerful one, at that.

Snapping out of his thoughts with a shake of his head, Kakashi hastily rushed to his two students to check them for any serious injuries; he could tell from the way Sakura was holding her arm that she'd either fractured something in her elbow or upper arm while Sasuke finally stopped drying heaving, still coughing and gasping breathlessly while staring blankly at the ground with wide and panicked eyes...

xXx

_Glima_. Glimpse or Flash. It was his people's age-old fighting style, forged and honed on the battlefield throughout generations dating as far back as the origins of his ancestor's ancestors. Every single movement was 'simple' and lightning-quick in its execution. Each attack striking like Thor's thunderous hammer with almost surgical precision every time with almost unnatural stamina efficiency. Used for both combat and sport amongst his people, _Glima_ had three different 'forms' to it; _Lausatok_, _Hryggspenna_, and _Brokartok_. Personally, he couldn't really tell much of a difference between any of them in the heat of combat, simply flowing from one form to another with every move he made like water around a stone.

Having been born and raised on the battlefield by his ancestors for centuries, the _Glima_ style was actually centered around grappling and wrestling, unlike most other commonly encountered martial arts that never really focused on grappling in any amount worth mentioning. Although a primarily grapple-based style, _Glima_ still generously utilized throws, blows, kicks, chokes, locks, pain techniques, and weapon techniques. For generations, each and every _Aki_ starts their _Glima_ training from a young age, usually around six or seven years old. While most modern day shinobi typically practiced their taijutsu in a dojo padded mats or with wooden training posts that couldn't move or commited countless katas to muscle-memory or 'sparred' with instructors that did their best not to harm their students, the _Aki_ were a tough and hardy people, practicing and training outside all year round where the soil was hard-packed and the weather was unforgiving.

Because of it, the 'shinobi' of Uzushio had always held the advantage of close-combat superiority over the _orlendr_ clans and, later on, the Hidden Villages for years. The _Aki_ developed high pain thresh holds during their training and learned how to utilize pain and even the fear of pain to control and manipulate their opponents, always maneuvering them into the weakest position possible to maintain their advantage over them. It didn't matter if it was a summer heatwave or winter blizzard, they kept training without hesitation, first learning to fight with _Glima_ unarmed before moving on to their weapons training in everything their clan had to offer from knives, short-swords, spears, staves, axes, and even crudely sharpened sticks; anything that could so much as be _mistaken_ for a weapon was incorporated into their training.

As strong and reliable as it was for the _Aki_, _Glima_, in the hands of an _Ulfhednar_, was a very deadly 'weapon'. Not because of their lycanthropic capabilities, but because of just how unbelievably strong their bloodline made them. Only sixteen years old and just a little over five and a half feet tall, Naruto possessed the strength of ten full-grown men and the stamina to match it, but in his lycan form...

Snarling quietly as he glared out from the brush with golden-amber eyes, his obsidian claws lightly digging into the pack earth under him as he stayed crouched down amongst the bushes and briars. In the center of the clearing was a single towering elk bull that had wanted to get in some last-minute grazing before nightfall, which was still an hour or so away despite it's lack of comprehension of time. Hearing a dry twig snap in the distance, the elk bull raised its head and stared into the gradually darkening forest with mild alarm, searching for any sign of a predator.

It didn't have the chance to react as it was rushed from the opposite direction, a massive clawed paw-like hand suddenly crashing against the side of its neck like a falling redwood tree before clamping down around its throat. The dagger-like claws that adorned the appendage's fingertips easily pierced through the elk's hide and effortlessly sliced through its wind pipe and carotid artery, silencing it before it could bellow in terror and pain. A second giant paw-like hand quickly joined the first, grabbing the elk's jaw before ruthlessly twisting the bull's head around, snapping its neck and killing it almost instantly. Towering over the elk's fresh corpse was a seven and a half, almost eight foot tall behemoth of thick and shaggy grey fur that did little to conceal the beast's powerful muscles as they rippled and flexed beneath its skin...

Although a good two feet taller and three hundred pounds of muscle heavier, Naruto's clothes and gear remained intact, each item and article having been meticulously enhanced with runes so that everything re-sized itself to better fit his hulking full-lycan form. His pants had been 'converted' into something akin to cargo shorts that ended just past his knees, his legs having not only grown longer, but they'd also become digitigrade just like those of a wolf's hind legs. His greaves had conformed to his altered legs, seamlessly protecting the front and sides of his ankles, shielding roughly two-thirds of his shins while his gauntlets had merely adjusted their sizes to better fit his larger forearms and hands. Teal blue crystal gleaming beautifully in the dying light of the sun as it dangled from his right wolven ear, Naruto's muzzle-like mask dangled from around his neck, having barely managed to get it off in his instinctually driven bestial mental state, his head and face no different than that of a real wolf's.

Growling lowly as he crouched down beside the elk carcass, Naruto hungrily licked his lips mid-snarl, briefly running his tongue over his thumb-sized ivory fangs. A moment later, he lurched forward while sinking his fangs into the elk's still-warm neck, tearing and ripping at its tough hide and thick flesh, its blood staining his fur crimson around his jaws and clawed hands, his palms an ashy shade of black due to the shallow, but calloused 'pads' that now adorned his hands and fingers. Swallowing a hunk of blood-drenched flesh, Naruto cast a quick glance around to check his surroundings before focusing wholly on his kill, using his claws to gut the elk's belly before digging out its nutrient-rich liver and biting into it.

All he could think about was how hungry he was and how good the elk tasted, single-mindedly devouring his catch bite by bite until there was nothing more than scraps left behind for the scavengers to squabble over. He didn't finish eating until about an hour after nightfall, disappearing into the dark forest minutes later as he sought out the nearest stream or river to quench his thirst and clean himself up; it wouldn't be long before the blood dries in his fur and starts stinking something fierce, which could very likely attract a lot of unwanted attention from other predators that might mistake him for an easy meal...

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

**Japanese Translations**

Kaijin- Embers

Haijin- Ashes and Dust

Kaido- Ashes and Earth

**Old Norse Translations**

_Oflati_\- A dandy, gaudy person

_Slapr_\- A good-for-nothing, lazy person

_Ulfr_\- Wolf

_Vinar_\- Friend

_Glima_\- Glimpse, Flash

_Lausatok_\- Free-grip

_Hryggspenna_\- Backhold

_Brokartok_\- Trouser-grip

A/N: A little more intense this time with some insight into how sensitive Naruto's temper and bloodline can be as well as showcasing some of his fighting skills. For those that are curious, _Glima_ is actually a real fighting style that the Vikings used in battle _and_ for sport in friendly competitions and such. Back to the story, however, Naruto and Hana have met and the Inuzuka woman has taken an interest in him, hoping to somehow 'rehabilitate' the blonde _Ulfhednar_. I don't really want to say too much else, however, before I accidentally spill the beans on what I have planned for the future. Hope you all enjoyed the chapter and continue to enjoy the story as it progress...


End file.
